The truth is, you don't have to do it all yourself. Hosted and managed options can take the burden off of both your data center and your IT staff. Enterprises can use offerings from iPass, Nokia Intellisync (which resells an OEM version of its software to carriers and other service providers) and Perlego (which also resells to service providers) in a hosted model. In addition, mobile carriers, including Sprint, have started to offer hosted MDM. Besides reducing strain on the data center, hosted solutions provide higher reliability and availability compared with in-house setups. Service providers have the resources and expertise to keep servers and services up and running, two factors that may not be available within the enterprise.
Although we didn't test these options extensively, we did receive demonstrations from Perlego and iPass to get a feel for how hosted offerings worked (we didn't look at Intellisync's hosted model, focusing instead on its installed version).
Whereas most of the servers we installed in our test bed used a management console to manage devices, hosted options operate over a Web interface. We found that both iPass and Perlego offer many of the features an enterprise would need to manage its mobile-device deployment without the extra cost and complexity of running its own servers. Perlego, iPass and Intellisync all made sure to note that the setup is designed to be virtually separated, meaning that, while multiple clients' mobile deployments will be managed from the same physical server, from a logical standpoint the installations are separate. Organization A can't access or manage organization B's mobile devices.
Hosted solutions may be worthwhile as your company starts with limited mobile device deployments and gradually expands. As deployments begin to scale and become more complex, it's probably sensible to bring device management directly under your control. Expect costs to run from $5 to $15 per month per device plus any additional setup or hosting charges.
Despite being akin to the boogeyman in the IT world, outsourcing can also represent a good strategy for some organizations. Let's face it: Like managing desktops, managing mobile devices can be time-consuming for any IT staff. If your resources are taxed, working with companies that offer IT outsourcing, like Hewlett-Packard (which we spoke with for this article), may represent a good option, leaving your IT staff to tackle strategic challenges like developing and supporting mobile applications to make the lines of business more productive.
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